July 9, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



45 



the facts of the government's daily work 

 are many of them of surprising interest. 

 The discovery of a great unknown bed of 

 edible scallops extending hundreds of miles 

 along the Atlantic coast, the utilization of 

 sea mussels for food, a use common in Eu- 

 rope, hitherto neglected here but now 

 springing into activity ; the finding of great 

 fishing banks close by the Oregon shore not 

 hitherto known to exist, the maintaining of 

 the pearl button industry by inoculating 

 fish through a biological laboratory near the 

 Mississippi River with a parasite which in 

 time becomes the fresh water clam, the find- 

 ing of decorative millinery in the bottom of 

 Long Island Sound in the shape of a primi- 

 tive sea animal, which becomes beautiful 

 when both dead and dyed — these are simply 

 part of the ordinary routine work of the 

 Bureau of Fisheries. It would be easy to 

 go on in this same service and tell how a 

 certain river perch lays a mass of eggs 

 much larger than itself and how fish exist 

 which are good for food yet are thrown 

 away at a time when men complain of the 

 high cost of living. One could go on for 

 long telling of matters of this kind. They 

 are facts which aifect daily life sometimes 

 to the extent of altering its conditions. 

 Here a slight change in a government speci- 

 fication opens a great market to American 

 cements that were theretofore excluded; 

 there a hint that a certain duty has been 

 modified leads to the large exportation of 

 coal. A few lines in print open the way to 

 the shipment of hundreds of cases of glass 

 abroad. The study of a ceramic chemist 

 in the quiet of his laboratory produces a 

 leadless glaze and destroys the evils of lead 

 poisoning. Some work of the same man 

 develops value out of hitherto useless clays 

 •and makes possible the production of porce- 

 lain of a kind not made here before. 



It would be easy to run on. These are 



only faint indications of living matters 

 of interest conducted by the public and for 

 the public but of which the public does not 

 get that close and intimate knowledge which 

 it is desirable they should have. 



I have not touched upon the extent to 

 which partisanship or passion may come in 

 to modify facts or to obscure them. I re- 

 gret that it should be true that half-truths 

 should be as common among us as they are. 

 Let us, however, deal to-day not with 

 matters known and controverted even 

 though known but in part and that which 

 is known used but partially. We have 

 spoken rather of things of general interest 

 that are not controversial but wliich in 

 their aggregate mean the service that the 

 people through their organized government 

 are doing for themselves. 



You will doubtless observe I have pre- 

 sented no remedy for the weaknesses that 

 have been suggested. This is because I do 

 not know of any panacea that will work 

 any immediate or even extended cure. 

 We are so busy in the actual work striv- 

 ing to make the doing useful to those for 

 whom it is done, so actively facing the diffi- 

 culties of being as helpful as we desire, 

 that we are perhaps more conscious of the 

 struggle than prophetic of success in it. 

 This is not a confession of defeat, for on 

 the contrary much accomplishment is real. 

 It is only when we measure what all of us 

 who own our affairs would like to know and 

 ought to know about those same affairs be- 

 side the ability to inform them of those 

 affairs that the task seems hard. 



A mental danger besets us all. It is that 

 of parochial thinking. It is all very well 

 for a man when he is dead to rest his bones 

 within the quiet shades and encircling wall 

 of some churchyard, but he needs a larger 

 sphere while he is alive. Up to the time 

 when a man leaves school to begin a man's 

 job in the world I suppose it may be said. 



